CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- Barring what at the moment looks like an unlikely trip to the Super Bowl, the Carolina Panthers have no chance to face Denver Broncos quarterback Peyton Manning this season.
But over the last five games the Carolina defense has surrendered Manning-like numbers to starting quarterbacks.
Pittsburgh’s Ben Roethlisberger, Baltimore’s Joe Flacco, Chicago’s Jay Cutler, Cincinnati’s Andy Dalton and Green Bay’s Aaron Rodgers had a cumulative 118.7 passer rating against Carolina.
Manning leads the league with a 118.2 rating.
It gets worse. Next up is Seattle quarterback Russell Wilson, who ranks fifth in the league with a 101.9 passer rating and leads all quarterbacks with 327 yards rushing.
While Rodgers was completing a gaudy 19 of 22 passes for 255 yards and three touchdowns against Carolina on Sunday, Wilson was making NFL history with 313 yards passing and 106 yards rushing in a loss to St. Louis.
It was the first time an NFL quarterback surpassed 300 yards passing and 100 yards rushing in the same game. It also gave Wilson an NFL-record three games with 200 yards passing and 100 yards rushing in the same game.
He’s done it twice in the last three games.
Having Wilson next on the schedule doesn’t bode well for a Carolina defense that ranks 22nd against the pass and 26th against the run -- a defense that Panthers linebacker Thomas Davis said on Monday isn’t competing hard enough and swarming to the ball.
“He’s a quarterback that is very versatile and does a great job of getting out of the pocket and creating plays and extending plays downfield," Davis said. “As a defense you have to understand that we are in a situation where you can't leave guys or take plays off and think he’s down.
“You have to compete until the whistle is blown."
Davis said the Panthers (3-3-1) haven’t been doing that. That explains why the defense is averaging about three more missed tackles the past five games than it averaged last season. That explains why the team shook things up Tuesday, releasing veteran defensive back Charles Godfrey after he missed three tackles against Green Bay and was victimized repeatedly on third down the week before at Cincinnati.
That also explains why teams are gashing Carolina for big plays.
Wilson is a big-play threat in the running and passing games. Against the Rams, he had a 19-yard touchdown run and two other runs of 10-plus yards, including a 52-yarder.
Three weeks ago against Washington, Wilson had four runs of 10-plus yards and two of 20-plus.
It will be key for Carolina to keep him contained and pressure him.
“He’s going to make plays," Panthers defensive coordinator Sean McDermott said. “These quarterbacks we’ve faced are elite quarterbacks ... and then you go against Russell Wilson. Every week you’re getting an upper-echelon quarterback.
“That’s the challenge, and our players have to know it and embrace it. Everyone’s got to have a part to it. The coverage has to be tight, the front has got to trap the quarterback and then we have to stay disciplined with that rush.”
If not? Davis summed that up best.
“We have some really big games coming up," he said. “But first and foremost we have to go out and do our jobs against Seattle or the outcome won’t be any different than the one we had this past weekend."